Planning For Success – Part 4 – Clarity/So What?

In PART 2 & 3 of the PLANNING FOR SUCCESS series I offered 11 CLARITY questions that if asked and answered honestly and as a process, you should be well on your way developing a very strong plan for the New Year.

As a bonus for your good work, in Part 4, I want to offer a bonus question and this might be the key and ultimate question to pushing yourself and your organization to the next level.

12.) What is your core and UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION?

In today’s world, differentiation is the key and if you don’t know why someone should buy your product or service over any competition then you simply don’t deserve to be in business. We must know, very clearly, without a doubt what your specific uniqueness is.

I have a friend who is very smart and a marketing expert to boot who says, “It’s not just a selling proposition. It’s not just something that’s compelling? It’s all about something that is UNIQUE, one of a kind, which your business should be!”

There are a number of questions that you can ask yourself, but a couple of the most important are;

1. Why would your ideal customer buy from you rather than from your competition?
2. Why would your ideal customer buy from your competition rather than from you?

If you have been honest with yourself as you go through these clarity exercises, then you might find that within the clarity that you discover, your Unique Value Propositions begin to emerge. Write them down and begin to hone them for use in your marketing materials and your sales messages.

Once this is done then you must apply the ultimate test. These two questions can potentially make or break your business totally based on how honest you were with your clarity exercise answers. All value proposition statements must pass the test of these two questions. This applies to anything that you say about your business in press materials; marketing materials; sales pitches; elevator pitches and more. Simply train yourself to step back and look at any statement that you are making and apply these questions. These are questions that you must envision your prospects and customers asking themselves anytime they read or hear anything about your business or products. The questions are:

1. SO WHAT?
2. W.I.I.F.M. (What’s in it for me?)

Create visuals in your head of a customer or prospect with a big neon sign attached to them and anytime that you say anything to them about your business, the sign lights up and begins blinking SO WHAT? WHATS IN IT FOR ME? SO WHAT? WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

After you train yourself to visualize this and you begin to really become honest about your answers your materials take on a completely different perspective. Many times you will begin to see just why prospects and customers do not react to your advertising; your marketing materials or your sales presentation. YOU MUST be able to answer these two questions…and if you can’t you pull the material and go back to the drawing board.

Clarity is the key to a business’ ability to survive, thrive and grow. Our next look at clarity will be focused on Clarity of Marketing.